I saw them and couldn't resist, I bought the XCWide for my Spark, £320 delivered for a 1650g 29er wheel set for Trail and Marathon use. Exactly my brief.
I'll let you know how good they are when they arrive in June...
I reckon off road, you'll be replacing the bearings quite frequently.
Think I would just pay the little bit extra for Hope wheels...
Oh come on Steve, its a sunny happy Friday! Pork wah? They look pretty good double sealed jobbies.
https://www.huntbikewheels.com/pages/hunt-mountain
...and the wheels themselves have a 2 year warranty against defect.
Steve - why do you think bearings will need to be replaced frequently? Don’t hunt claim they use very high quality bearings from Japan, or is that just marketing gumph?
They've Nova tech hubs, not exactly DT or Hope are they.
Looks good.
Not sure why novatech are bad hubs? Same as superstar surely? I get 2-3 years out of superstar hubs before I need to replace bearings. It's hardly a big cost though - just get some decent quality ones from simply bearings for a few quid, bosh them in and off you go.
Running novatec(superstar) hubs & hopes, no real difference between them or hopes in use or reliability after several years
If/when I eventually decide to build up a racey trail HT I'll get a set of these for sure, the weights and amazing for the money and the hubs should be quality, heard nothing but good things about the roadie wheels.
Steve bear in mind I already have a set of DT wheels...
My intention is to use these as Summer/Race and use the Synchos wheels in the winter/spares. At that price point and nearly 1lb off my rolling weight I don't think there's much of an argument unless they fall to pieces in 6 months, and with a 2 year warranty I should be looked after to some degree if that happens.
Looks like a good buy. Novatecs are fine - would buy them over hopes, tbh. Neither a premium product but at least the novatecs are priced accordingly. Had a 29er LB build on novatecs for 3 years and they've been flawless.
Did murder a pair CXing last winter, but that was down to my kids taking turns to blast the grease out of them with the jetspray in the pits. If you don't actively try to kill them they are fine.
novatec are a better buy than hopes. flame on!
Running novatec(superstar) hubs & hopes, no real difference between them or hopes in use or reliability after several years
This + 1
I've run novatec hubs on my road wheels, cx race bike and mountain bike and they've been absolutely fine.
ruddy hub snobs 😉
Oh yay! My novatech hubs are here! Woohoo!
Said no one ever.
Novatech do a bunch of different hubs, it depends exactly what they ar how good they are and whether they're worth it. TBH those wheels look a bit pricey to me for what they are but I've not costed up individual components.
My Novatecs so far are imo pretty much exactly as good as my old Pro 2 Evos, except that they only cost me £55. My DT240S sets are quite a bit better but, they didn't cost £55 either, in fact I paid that much just for one XD freehub body.
The road wheels list Ezo Japan precision bearings butnthe mtb hubs don’t as far as I can see. Does this mean the road bearings are better or have they just missed it off their listing?
For road wheels I had options of Hunt / Hope / Mavic within the budget I was looking at - I ruled out Hope as the freewheeling are just too loud for me.
The hunts had a good level of weight saving over both hope and Mavic at the price point and came tubeless ready bar tyres and sealant.
Novatech have a huge market share in mtb hubs, santa cruz, whyte and transition all use them oem as do plenty of other brands.
Ime the basic spec (ie not very high in novatech's range) hubs on my whyte are holding up okay after a harsh winter, the front is still spinning fine and still nicely greased when I took the end caps off a couple of weeks ago. The back is starting to feel very slightly rough but still got a few hundred miles left at least.
When they go i'll just replace the bearings with high end ones and they'll last just as well as anything else.
My Easton Arcs are fine with Novatech hubs so far. However there's a whole bunch of folk reporting failures in the Hightower thread on mtbr - seems the pawls in the rear hub are made of cheese. Several owners have had several replacements before SC moved to a different hub. Hopefully all the broken hubs were ridden by heavy riders.
novatec hubs are fine.
its the getting of spares in a couple of years thats a pain.
usually involves pot luck on ebay ime.
My hatred for Novatec comes from buying a used hub from here and then being told that Novatec don't stock replacement axles for it anymore, and it's a subtly different size to the model that Superstar used in the Switch so I can't ask them either.
Whereas Hope still stock parts for my Pro2 (not Evo) hub.
To me they look like a decent mid ranage wheel set punching slightly above the £1 per gram weight saving guide vs my oem, with a set of snappy hubs and a decent warranty, spokes, taped, valves included from a UK located company.
Sod he brand name, unless they fail i dont see whats not to like.
Re the potential for cheese Pawls - with a two year warranty - who cares!
<div class="bbp-reply-author">trail_rat
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novatec hubs are fine.
its the getting of spares in a couple of years thats a pain.
usually involves pot luck on ebay ime.
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Their online store has lots of spares (not sure how far back they go) and they are really quick to reply with sensible advice IME
"Sod he brand name, unless they fail i dont see whats not to like."
the long lead time ?
Six weeks?
I'm not in a rush 🙂